Research in Distance Education: impact on practice conference, 27 October 2010. Presentation in Supporting Teaching and Learning Strand by Dr Joanna Newman from the British Library: Supporting researchers at the British Library.
UGC NET Paper 1 Mathematical Reasoning & Aptitude.pdf
RIDE 2010 presentation - Supporting researchers at the British Library
1. Supporting Researchers at the British
Library
Dr Joanna Newman, Head of Higher Education
Centre for Distance Learning Conference
27 October 2010
2. 2
Introduction to the British Library
“We exist for everyone who wants to
do research – for academic, personal
or commercial purposes”
Our collections cover all known
subject areas; sciences, technology,
medicine, arts & humanities, social
sciences…
We have a copy of every item
published in the UK
Our collections cover all formats;
sound, images, video, newspapers,
maps, manuscripts, databases,
books and journals, much more…
3. Researchers from Higher Education
30.5%
25.2%
14.6%
8.9%
8.9%
4.5%
2.7%
2.3%
1.6%
0.8%
Undergraduates
Postgraduates
Academic staff
SMEs
Personal researchers
Creative industry researchers
Further education students
Corporate researchers
Authors and writers
Public sector researchers
HE sector makes up 70.3% of BL Readers (UGs, PGs, academic
staff).
Source: BL British Library internal
reader admissions data for period Oct-
06 to June-07.
4. 4
4
Supporting Higher Education
Partnership Projects:
EthOS
UK Research Reserve
Access to Collections:
Archival Sound Recordings
British Library Newspapers
Online
Understanding researcher behaviour:
Google Generation report
Researchers of Tomorrow study
Growing Knowledge Exhibition
5. 5
5
Supporting research
Social Sciences
Science,
Technology &
Medicine
Arts & Humanities
Document Supply service provides 1.4m articles/year
primarily to scientists
Renewed engagement with researchers using digital content
and online services
In-depth focus on biomedicine and energy/environment
Collection includes journals, patents, theses and more, and
is updated by some 9,000 articles every day
A significant and underexploited international collection of books,
journals, reports, theses, official publications and other materials
A unique collection of grey literature, of special interest to practitioners
and theoreticians
Research collaboration with ESRC
Greatest research collection of its kind in the world
World-class curatorial expertise by subject, medium and geographical area
BL has been developing world-leading e-innovations for past decade (e.g. International
Dunhuang Project) and building a significant corpus of digitised texts
Research collaboration with AHRC, British Academy and HEIs
6. Global changes affecting the research environment
New
Technologies
New research methods
Growth of UK
knowledge
economy
Changes to
researcher
expectations
Proliferation of
information
1
2
3
• Web 2.0/3.0
• Mobile & interoperability
• Display technologies
• Born digital
• Mass digitisation
• Rights management
• Information & media literacy
• Want contact anytime, anywhere
• Store, personalise, manipulate,
repurpose, share info with peers
• New ways of relating to each
other and information
• Different attitude to Intellectual
Property
• Entrepreneurialism & innovation
• Creative Industries
• Science, Media & Technology
• New subjects
• Greater collaboration
• Multiple formats, mash-up
• Creative theory & creative
practice
• Importance of ephemera
• Students learn in a different
way to their teachers
TextText
VideoVideo
SoundSound
ImagesImages
Cross-disciplinaryCross-disciplinary
Cross-borderCross-border
Multi-authoringMulti-authoring
Non-linearNon-linear
EphemeraEphemera DynamicDynamic
7. Digital Literacy and changing researcher behaviour
The Google Generation study published in January 2008 claims
that, although young people demonstrate an apparent ease and
familiarity with computers, they rely heavily on search engines,
view rather than read and do not possess the critical and
analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the
web. It aslo concluded that -
All age groups revealed to share so-called ‘Google Generation' traits
Libraries still have to adapt to the digital mindset
Young people are seemingly lacking in information skills; strong message
to the government and society at large
8. Researchers of Tomorrow:
A three year JISC-BL study tracking the research behavior of
‘Generation Y’ doctoral students
Generation Y
Born 1982 – 1994
Education partly
non-digital
Generation Z
The ‘Google’
Generation
Born 1995 onwards
Education digital
from start
A 3 year study into the information
seeking and research behaviour of UK
doctoral students born between 1982
and 1994
Builds on the findings of the ‘Google
Generation’ report published in 2008
Focusing on behaviour of ‘Generation Y’ –
unlike ‘Google Generation’, their school
education was partly non-digital and
internet-free
Commissioned by the British Library and
the JISC
Education for Change Ltd and The
Research Partnership commissioned to
undertake the research
Study commenced February 2009 and will
report in February 2012
9. Researchers of Tomorrow
Purpose of the report
Report
conclusions and
recommendations
will…
Allow BL and JISC
to determine how
best to meet current
and future needs of
academic
researchers
Provide guidance to
libraries and
information
specialists on how to
best meet research
needs of Generation Y
scholars and their
immediate successors
Establish a
benchmark for
research behaviour
against which
subsequent
generations of
scholars can be
measured
Reveal potential
impact of changing
research behaviour
on HE institutions
10. 10
10
Results so far:
The Wider Context Setting Survey – Key
Findings
July 2009: 6,500 responses from 68 HEIs
38% of these were from Generation Y researchers
July 2010: 6,500 responses from 70 HEIs (results being analysed now)
Students are turning to their peers and supervisors for support rather
than librarians and information specialists
Only a small proportion of respondents in any age group say they use
‘emergent technology (e.g. Web 2.0 applications) in their research
Interesting attitudes to Open Access
More Generation Y than older scholars are likely to be working from office
space, laboratory or in their own institution, rather than their own home.
Far fewer respondents have received any training in using more advanced
technology-based research resources and tools such as e-research methods,
finding and using online datasets or working in virtual research environments.
Results confirmed by recent BL/HEPI report on the
postgraduate landscape – www.bl/news/pgreport
11. Skills for the Future - National Postgraduate Training
Days
Objectives
Promote awareness of
the Library amongst
postgraduate students
To introduce varied
relevant collections to
researchers
Remove perceived
anxieties about the
Library
Involve students and
researchers from outside
London
Provide valuable
networking for students
Contribute to Robert’s
skills agenda
305
532
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
2007-8 2008-9
Over 1000 participants since
Training Days began
12. Who attends National Postgraduate Training Days?
Attendees by location
Other
England (outside
London)
London
Scotland
Wales
Open uni
NI
Bursaries provided to encourage
participants from outside London,
thanks to funding from key partners.
36% from London universities
64% from universities outside London
Institute for
Historical Research
Institute of
English Studies
Institute of Germanic
and Romance Studies
Key Funding Partners
Economic & Social
Research Council
13. What impact to National Postgraduate Training Days have?
38%
24%
77%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
1
Already had a reader pass Currently use the BL ("Yes" only) Would use th BL in the future
38% of participants already had a readers pass
24% of participants currently use the Library
77% of participants said they would use the Library in the future.
14. What participants had to say about
Postgraduate Training Days…
Exploring the collections
Networking opportunities
“Today has demolished a mental wall for me as I
had (wrongly) felt too unimportant to use the BL.
Thank you very much indeed for arranging the
day and making it clear that ALL researchers are
welcome. I shall acquire a Readers card and
return immediately!”
“The facilities really are fantastic
and an eye opener for me at the
potential avenues for further
research.”
“The programme was excellent, all
staff involved were very interesting
and the event was well worth
attending.”
“Everybody was down to earth and
flexible in their approaches to using
library resources. This I found to be
particularly helpful as BL can seem
intimidating.”
15. Is digital different? Digital resources for
researchers: Ethos
EThOS:
Provides free access to the research contained in doctoral
theses
Offers a one-stop electronic shop for all UK theses
Improves postgraduate knowledge transfer to students
Creates an international showcase for the best of UK
research
Enriches the UK and global knowledge pool
Ensures a sustainable service for the future.
16. Ethos – Benefits
Benefits of
e-theses online
For thesis authors:
Your research is easily
available to the wider
scholarly community.
E theses over 100
times more likely to be
read than paper ones
You can present your
research in more
creative ways – using
multimedia,
incorporating datasets
to support results.
For institutions:
Provides a ‘shop
window’ highlighting
your research outputs
Usage stats indicate
who is using your
research outputs
The Online Toolkit
provides guidance on
establishing e-thesis
repositories and
participating in EThOS.
17. Is digital different? Digital resources for researchers:
Archival Sound Recordings
www.sounds.bl.uk
Available
for
playback
and
download
284
institutions
signed
up
Free to UK
higher and
further
education
Tens of
thousands
of
recordings
Browse,
search,
locate on
map
Over 21,000 recordings
selected from the
British Library Sound Archive Music,
spoken word,
environmental
sounds
18. Archival Sound Recordings
Collection highlights
Oral histories
World and traditional music
Classical Music
Wildlife vocalisations
Soundscapes
Sound Recording History
20. 20
Archival Sound Recordings
Escaping Google
• Martine Franck
Martine Franck, interviewed by Amanda Hopkinson, Paris 1998
Source: Archival Sound Recordings
http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=021M-C0459X0104XX-0300V0.xml
“I found the audio fantastic to work with. The
realism of it inspired students and encouraged
them to source other material beyond Google
searches.
As a tutor I maybe too often stand there and
give my opinion about somebody’s work.
Listening to interviews allows students to hear
from the photographer themselves what’s
behind the images.”
Amanda Broadley, Photography Tutor, Joseph
Priestley College
21. Archival Sound Recordings
Preserving global culture
Amakondere players: Samuel Kahunde 2008
“I found the audio fantastic to work with.
The realism of it inspired students and
encouraged them to source other material
beyond Google searches.
As a tutor I maybe too often stand there
and give my opinion about somebody’s
work. Listening to interviews allows
students to hear from the photographer
themselves what’s behind the images.”
Amanda Broadley, Photography Tutor,
Joseph Priestley College
“The Wachsmann Uganda Recordings
are extremely useful. In Bunyoro
kingdom for example, an official recently
told me that they had instruments that
are not played because nobody knows
the skills and their music. I feel that the
music can be restored through listening
to the digital sounds that are in the British
Library archives.”
Samuel Kahunde, PhD ethnomusicology
student, Sheffield University
“The Oral History of Recorded Sound
collection provides valuable interviews with
those directly involved in the development
of stereo recording technique and
commercial decision making. As periods of
technical experimentation, the processes
are often poorly documented and these first
hand accounts provide an invaluable insight
into the methods employed,”
Ewan Gordon, PhD music technology
student, University of York
22. Archival Sound Recordings
For teachers
Full of engaging, thought-
provoking material to provide
enhance pedagogy
A valuable tool for teaching
key skills to students
For researchers
A rich collection of cross-
disciplinary, primary source
material
A large selection of rare and
unpublished material
23. Is digital different? Digital resources for researchers: British
Library Newspapers Online
Online access to milliions of pages from the
British Library’s unique collections
Free to licensed UK higher and further
education
Pay-per-view model available for the public
Search entire text using advanced OCR
(optical character recognition) technology
View scanned images of original
newspapers and download pages
Bibliographic head notes for each title
Contextual essays by academic experts
Chronological timeline overviewDetail from ‘Latest incidents in Connection
with the Doings of Jack the Ripper’
The Illustrated Police News
27 October 1888
24. 17th
to 18th
Century Burney Collection
Titles include:
The Boston Gazette
The Bath Journal
Dawk’s Newsletter
Craftsman or Say’s Weekly Journal
The Calcutta Chronicle and General Advertiser
700 or so bound voulmes of newspapers
and news pamphlets gathered by the
Reverend Doctor Charles Burney (1757-
1817)
1 million fully text-searchable pages
Newspapers, newsbooks, Acts of
Parliament, addresses, broadsides,
pamphlets and proclamations
Titles from London, British Isles and
Colonies
Highlights:
The Great Fire of London
The French Revolution
The Boston Tea Party
Engraving from A Continued Journal of All
the Proceedings of the Duke of Buckingham
30 August 1627
Engraving from His Majesties
declaration to all his subjects
20 December 1647
25. 19th
Century British Library Newspapers
Titles include:
The Graphic
The Poor Man’s Guardian
The North Wales
Chronicle
The Manchester Times
The Chartist
48 titles displaying history as it
unfolded through newspapers
the day
2.2 million fully text searchable
pages
National and regional papers
from England, Wales, Scotland
and N. Ireland
Titles in specialist areas such
as Victorian Radicalism and
Chartism
Highlights:
War: The Battle of Trafalgar
Crime: Jack the Ripper
Science: Responses to Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’
Sports: The cricket match that started the Ashes
Literature: serialisations by Charles Dickens
‘Murder and Suicide at Tintagel
The Illustrated Police News
2 February 1867
‘A Remarkable Railway
Accident in Dublin’
The Graphic
27 February 1900
26. 19th
Century British Library Newspapers
One undergraduate tracked the early
weeks of the newspaper reception of
Darwin's Origin of Species, the first time
this had been attempted for half a
century. I used to spend much of my
time showing students how to find things;
now there is more time for them to think.
Prof. James A. Secord, History and
Philosophy of Science, University of
Cambridge
The well chosen geographical range of
provincial newspapers and the
sophisticated search facility could well
change the face of British historiography
over the coming decades, as genuinely
national treatments of topics are now
much more manageable.
Andrew J. Hobbs, PhD student,
University of Central Lancashire
19th Century British Library Newspapers
gives us an invaluable new perspective on
the way Victorian Britain came to
understand itself as a community of
citizens, consumers and commentators. It is
hard to imagine any researcher with
nineteenh-century interests to whom it does
not offer important insights on their subject:
and it is dangerously addictive!
Prof. Arthur Burns, Kings College London
‘War Between France and Prussia’
The Illustrated Police News
30 July 1870
27. 27
Blending digital and physical environments: Growing
Knowledge: the evolution of research
12 October 2010 – 16 July 2011
Our new exhibition of innovative digital
tools and technologies
Visit onsite in the British Library or
online and tell us what you think
Join one of our evaluation sessions
specifically for researchers
www.bl.uk/growingknowledge
#blgk
For evaluation sessions contact -
infostudies-survey@ucl.ac.uk
This presentation will look at the use of digitised resources inteaching, learning and research, using examples from British Libraryprojects including Archival Sound Recordings and (19 newspapercollections. It will also look at recent research on information seekingbehaviour and how the emerging findings are providing sign posts forlibraries and universities.
National library of the UK, legal deposit library (we receive copy of all published material in UK).
One of 5 largest research reference libraries in world
Two main functions: the role of the BL is to provide access to these collections to whoever has a need to use them. Also to preserve for future generations (including material in printed and electronic format)
Who uses the BL? Diverse audiences from students and academics from around the world - Currently over 60% of users of our collections and services are from UK higher education - includes university libraries, academic staff, postgraduate students, etc. Also the general public for exhibitions and events, to visit the building. Also run large engagement programme with schools which includes online resources and workshops.
We also run one of the largest document supply services in the world, and we supply your own university libraries with information. This involves sending actual books or documents, photocopies or electronic pdfs of journals, etc, to university and also private sector companies.Includes a wide range of formats of material, not just books & journals, but sound, maps, photographs, illustrations, electronic databases.
For example our Sound Archive is a national resource of audio history, recordings, music, including a large collection of wildlife sounds to regional dialects.
Also have large business resources for entrepreneurs, the Business & IP Centre. This is a new space for the Library – we have one of the best collections of business information, from company, industry and market guides, and patents & IP.
Key points:
- 30.5% of Readers are undergraduates, 25.2% postgraduates.
- SMEs (8.9%) and personal researchers (8.9%) also make up a significant proportion of readers, particularly since SMEs are a relatively new audience for us to target.
- In the presentation to analyse two top areas in more detail; UGs and PGs.
Leads to an overview of how we work with higher education. Examples include commissioning research on user behaviour, partnerships with higher education, and digitisation projects to provide remote access.
We commission large studies into changing researcher behaviour to understand how best to meet current and future needs of researchers in terms of resources, technology and environment
Current 3 year study Researchers of Tomorrow in collaboration with JISC to understand research behaviour and needs of the so called Generation Y students
Partnership Projects
Work with key partners across the sector to help provide solutions and deliver innovative projects including EThOS and UKRR
Access to Collections
Opening up BL collections via digitisation and JISC funding to allow remote access to primary source materials, eg. BL newspapers online and ASR
Huge changes currently going on in Higher Education – this slide produced before Browne Review and CSR but if anything, is truer now than before. The BL has to adapt its products and services, and its support for researchers to a changing world…
This slide outlines the drivers of change within research (**** refer to slide here **** )
The centre is needed because of these global changes affecting the research environment. These changes mean current services and facilities do not meet the needs or expectations of researchers.
Research practices are evolving, including increased collaboration and demand for multimedia content
Researcher needs & expectations of how they should be able to interact with and use these resources in their work are changing
There are discovery and authentication difficulties associated with rapidly growing and fragmented resources. These problems are pronounced in the areas of navigation and quality-assurance
Three year research study into the information seeking and research behaviour of UK doctoral students born between 1982 and 1994
Builds on the findings of the ‘Google Generation’ report published in 2008
Commonly dubbed ‘Generation Y’ – unlike ‘Google Generation’, their school education was at least partially non-digital and internet-free
Education for Change Ltd and The Research Partnership commissioned to undertake the research
Study commenced February 2009 and will report February 2012
Research conclusions and recommendations will
aid BL and JISC to determine how best to meet current and future needs of academic researchers
Reveal potential impact of changing research behaviour on HE institutions
establish a benchmark for research behaviour against which subsequent generations of scholars can be measured
provide guidance to libraries and information specialists on how best to meet the research needs of Generation Y scholars and their immediate successors.
Looking at the reading rooms to which the participants are accessing most, humanities occupies a generous slice (18%) representing by far the most represented subject. The situation does not change much when projecting this data into the future, with humanities taking a 65% of the choices.
Beside Humanities, the categories that register a higher usage are Manuscripts and Rare Books and Music. Looking at future projections made on respondents’ intentions Newspapers and Manuscripts will register a massive increase. Overall all the reading rooms showed an impressive increase in likelyhood of usage.
In this section it is interesting to note how, while in the current behaviour values a percentage as high as 62% of the respondents did not insert any reply, that percentage drops to 6% for future behaviour, suggesting that the participants have clear ideas on which reading room to use and that they took interest in making it clear.
The percentages don’t add up to 100% (the total sum is 267%), this is due to the fact that many people would like to exploit the multidisciplinary offer of the British Library using more than one reading room. In fact many respondents ticked more than one reading room, underlining the fact that they would like to research at the same time in different disciplines.
This particularly free and multidisciplinary offer of research material is a peculiar characteristic of the BL, and a very important advantage towards the latest trends of research in multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity.
Introduce idea of online training
Feedback on Expectations
For what concerns the management of expectations, a very good result has been obtained:
81% of the respondents found that the day was as expected,
Among those who said the contrary, 15% was positively surprised.
Another very positive data can be found in the percentage of those who agreed to opt in for future research projects: 320 out of 411 (78%). This is very good because underline the possibility of a long term commitment with the Library.
Quotes and Claims
The most frequent claims and suggestions proposed by the respondents are listed at the end of APX 1. The most frequent (top 3 highlighted) ones there are:
Less overlap between the speakers
Lunch should be provided
More opportunities for networking should be provided
Handbook, contact details, a list of participants and name badge should be provided
A tour round the reading rooms should be organised
The session/workshops should be more interactive
Get a chance to search records
It is easy to note how some of these comments could actually be resolved in one single solution: offering a lunch will be good for those who come from outside London, and, at the same time, it would be a good opportunity for networking. It has not been done for budget restraints.
At the same time, it is easier to network if name badges and name lists are provided, and it is also easier to keep in touch after the event.
If it is possible a simple catering should be offered. Many comments referred to that, and even if it might look like a trivial issue, it is an easy and important networking moment. Some digital/printable material with all the relevant information should be created and made available before/during and after the workshops. Some of the comments referred to the fact that there is overlapping between the different speakers, they should probably compare their material before.
The Open Access definition used by EThOS is:
- Download of thesis is free to researchers;
- Participating HEIs will pay up-front costs of theses digitisation;
- If the thesis is required hard-bound, soft-bound, loose-leaf or on CD/DVD, costs will be charged to the researcher;
For HEI's who opt-out of Open Access supply, digitisation of the thesis will be charged to the first researcher ordering the item, and thereafter will be free to download
Open Access is NOT free access! If UK HE wants to offer Open Access, they must cover the costs (as they do now).
If we wish to offer access to the great body of research currently held on paper, we need to digitise the contents. Digitisation is manually intensive and therefore expensive!
To fund this, we have devised the following participation options – UK institutions can select the participation option most appropriate to their own circumstances
Open Access Sponsor – contribute up-front and receive the full value of your contribution in digitised theses selected on-demand by researchers using the system
Associate Member Level 1 (Open Access) – contribute retrospectively to the full cost of theses digitised
Associate Member Level 2 – theses contributed but first researcher pays for digitisation
Associate Member Level 3 – metadata supplied but theses supplied by the institution
Theses will be digitised only once – thereafter they will be available on-line for Open Access download from EThOS forever, hence ‘Opening Access to UK Theses’.
For thesis authors:
Your research is easily available to the wider scholarly community.
E theses over 100 times more likely to be read than paper ones
You can present your research in more creative ways – using multimedia, incorporating datasets to support results
For institutions:
Provides a ‘shop window’ highlighting your research outputs
Usage stats indicate who is using your research outputs
The Online Toolkit provides guidance on establishing e-thesis repositories and participating in EThOS.
Working with a broad partnership of institutions to ensure that end-product meets the needs and addresses concerns of the academic community.
The Archival Sound Recordings project makes selections from the British Library Sound Archive available online for UK universities and colleges.
(click) It is funded by the JISC, which stands for the Joint Information Systems Committee.
(click) The website offers a wide range of spoken word, music, wildlife and environmental sounds as well as related images. There are currently 4000 hours of recordings on the site and around 5000 more being added over the coming year. If you were to try to all listen to all these recordings for, say, 8 hours a day every day, it would take you a little over 3 years to hear everything.
(click) You can access the website at www.sounds.bl.uk Anyone can use the site to browse recordings, and visit the British Library to listen in the reading rooms.
(click) Members of licensed institutions can also stream and download recordings using an Athens login and password. You don’t need to be in your institution to do this – you can use your password to login from anywhere in the UK.
The collections include interviews with UK artists and designers, jazz musicians and scientists, radio programmes and public debates, classical and world music, wildlife recordings and sounds of the natural and industrial world.
Unique and previously unpublished material, such as African field recordings and oral history collections are being made widely accessible for the first time.
Collections which are not on the website yet, but are being prepared in the current phase of the project include:
the ICA talks – a series of public talks given at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in the 1980’s by leading cultural and political figures
Living Memory of the Jewish Community in Britain
and Pre-1957 recordings of works by Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, Haydn and Bach
This slide (apart from the blue box) is taken from a class given to Level 2 photography students at Joseph Priestley College. The tutor found the resource a good way to introduce students to the kind of research skills they’d need for good marks at Level 3.
Samuel Kahunde is a researcher from Sheffield University, who has been using the Wachsmann Ugandan field recordings to support his PhD researching the royal music of Bunyoro. Although instruments for this music survive, many of the forms have died out – there are no more living practitioners of the style. Samuel has been consulting with Ugandan officials and the king of the Bunyoro tribe about revitalising these lost traditions, drawing in part on the recordings held on Archival Sound Recordings.
“The Oral History of Recorded Sound collection provides valuable interviews with those directly involved in the development of stereo recording technique and commercial decision making, says Ewan. “As periods of technical experimentation, the processes are often poorly documented and these first hand accounts provide an invaluable insight into the methods employed,”
Archival Sound Recordings is an important tool for teaching, learning and research.
(click) Audio recordings can bring classes to life, and give students new insight into a subject
( click) You can develop your students’ research skills through exploring the website
(click) Researchers can find a wealth of primary source material to bring originality to their work
(click) The service provides easy access to unique material which simply cannot be found anywhere else
The evaluation is being carried out by UCL. The findings will come out at same time as the Libraries of the Future project will also report on its 18 month study.